Bug 392772

You can create your own patterns in YaST Add-On-Creator and than use Product-Creator to create new medias from your original one and the AddOns...

Could you try?

There are a few problems with that.

First the Add-On module requires that you have the packages locally.  YaST package manager so far as I can see does not have an option to save packages, so it requires you to download them manually resulting in the very real possibility of missing a few package dependencies. This creates a huge amount of work and makes it very easy to miss some packages and does not make it easy at all when your wanting to add rpm's that are readily available on the repositories.

For example what I have to do right now to create custom iso is this.

-Open up Yast Software Management (my repositories have already been setup in Software Repositories)
-Switch the Filter to Installation Summary and check keep
-Export it to user-packages.xml
-Close down Software Management

-Open up Product Creator
-reselect all my repos that I want it to grab the packages from
-Select my Base Source (which it seems can only be the Installation DVD, selecting the factory repo results in griping about not being able to find a description of some sorts in the boot floppy directory)
-Forward through to the Software Selection Screen ---> Click on Details
-Select File and then Import and select my user-packages.xml,
-Change the filer again to Installation Summary and select Keep just to make sure it gets it all.
-Digitally Sign the Product (requiring an insane amount of the same password to be entered way too many times) and then create my ISO or Repo

Then when I want to install the ISO it shows all of the original patterns, the big problem with this is creating the ISO does not copy all of the original items on the DVD as well so selecting on of the prebuilt patterns results in missing files and you have to remember all of the packages you added on it.  If I had an option there to select my package selection based on the packages I can be assured that my personal preferences are going to be installed with all the needed dependencies.

Now ideally IMHO Product Creator would have the capabilty to work like this.

-Open up Product Creator
-Asks me if I want to create a restore DVD of the installed system or do one of the other present options
-I select yes to the restore DVD option
-It automatically selects my active repositories and parses the installed packages (the user-packages.xml file) and creates that as a Pattern upon installation as we already know that the dependencies that are needed are on the system and satisfied.
-Creates the repo/DVD by downloading the needed packages and then builds the skeleton after asking ONCE for the GPG password to sign all packages on it
-It creates the iso/repo

Now when I go to install it, I boot to it, I select the restore pattern. I set my partitioning, network config, etc etc. and click install. 

When it's done installing I have My custom package selections all preinstalled.  I'm up and running.  This also allows me to have the latest packages on the DVD.

I would even settle for being able to just select custom and import the user-packages.xml in yast during the initial install stage (the package list copied to an easily accessible point on the installation medium.








 

(In reply to comment #2 from Dean Hilkewich)
> There are a few problems with that.
> 
> First the Add-On module requires that you have the packages locally.  YaST
> package manager so far as I can see does not have an option to save packages,
> so it requires you to download them manually resulting in the very real
> possibility of missing a few package dependencies. This creates a huge amount
> of work and makes it very easy to miss some packages and does not make it easy
> at all when your wanting to add rpm's that are readily available on the
> repositories.

Hm, it may be a nice feature to allow Add-On creator to use your installation sources and not only take the local rpm's. Would such feature satisfy your needs?

> For example what I have to do right now to create custom iso is this.
> ...
> 
> -Open up Product Creator
> -Select my Base Source (which it seems can only be the Installation DVD,
> selecting the factory repo results in griping about not being able to find a
> description of some sorts in the boot floppy directory)

This is bug 396704

> -Digitally Sign the Product (requiring an insane amount of the same password > to be entered way too many times) and then create my ISO or Repo

Looks like a bug as well...

> ...
> 
> Then when I want to install the ISO it shows all of the original patterns, the
> big problem with this is creating the ISO does not copy all of the original
> items on the DVD as well so selecting on of the prebuilt patterns results in
> missing files and you have to remember all of the packages you added on it.  

Bug 393515

> If
> I had an option there to select my package selection based on the packages I
> can be assured that my personal preferences are going to be installed with all
> the needed dependencies.
> 
> Now ideally IMHO Product Creator would have the capabilty to work like this.
> 
> -Open up Product Creator
> -Asks me if I want to create a restore DVD of the installed system or do one of
> the other present options
> -I select yes to the restore DVD option
> -It automatically selects my active repositories and parses the installed
> packages (the user-packages.xml file) and creates that as a Pattern upon
> installation as we already know that the dependencies that are needed are on
> the system and satisfied.

Looks like the sufficient option would be another radiobutton/checkbox before the dialog with the source selection called "clone this system", which would preselect your own sources and the installed packages.

Ladislav, what do you think?

"Hm, it may be a nice feature to allow Add-On creator to use your installation
sources and not only take the local rpm's. Would such feature satisfy your
needs?"

This would be an improvement, however I'm looking more for a feature like you mention here.

"Looks like the sufficient option would be another radiobutton/checkbox before
the dialog with the source selection called "clone this system", which would
preselect your own sources and the installed packages."

and then have an option during installation that allows me to check 1 box to select the restoration of those selections. 

Also with the 1 click restoration of the system (package wise), I still want to be able to go through the regular options of modifying the partitioning, networking, users, etc etc. as the restore/installation medium would be used on multiple systems but with slightly different hardware configurations (harddrive sizes, networking config, etc)

The idea is interesting. Yes, it requires a new button before starting the configuration.

And another difference to the standard product creator is that it needs the current target (to get the installed packages).

Normally the product creator uses a fake target which is empty (no packages installed) and user selects packages to install which will be part of the target product.

Entered as feature request FATE#304894